Satoshi Nakamoto is better off dead.
Ever since Gavin Andresen showed up at the CIA headquarters in Virginia, it’s been evident that something was remiss about Satoshi Nakamoto. Was he a group of government agents? Is he a prisoner of some black ops organization? Why would he hold all those coins so long?
This week, Craig Wright had some of his claims validated by a court – whether or not he can cough up the roughly 500,000 BTC he’s been ordered to pay is another question altogether. But Wright is not the only person claiming to be or know Satoshi Nakamoto. Wright says that the final “slice” of his cryptographic key to the legendary Satoshi horde will be available to him in a matter of months.
The judge in the case, who did not decide whether or not Wright is Nakamoto but instead ruled on the facts of the business relationship between Wright and deceased computer scientist Dave Kleiman, is on record as saying this about Wright’s behavior during court proceedings:
“During his testimony, Dr. Wright’s demeanour did not impress me as someone who was telling the truth. When it was favourable to him, Dr. Wright appeared to have an excellent memory and a scrupulous attention to detail. Otherwise, Dr. Wright was belligerent and evasive.”
Wright is not the only person who has claimed the throne of Nakamoto.
A Brief History of Satoshi Nakamoto Claims
In the intervening years, an increasing number of men from all over the world have made similar claims.
Another Australian who goes by the handle Scronty says that he invented Bitcoin along with two other programmers, and claims that the name for Satoshi came from a Michael Crichton book – Rising Sun – in which there was a company called Nakamoto Corporation. Nakamoto Corporation was an evil one indeed in that book, responsible for some twisted things including a murder, if I recall correctly.
Then there is Satoshi on Twitter, who constantly posts funny shit:
This article isn’t meant to speculate on who the “real” Satoshi Nakamoto is. If you want that, here’s a little better rundown on that track. I suspect Satoshi would say he’s happy to be dead, and happy to have achieved his mission, if he has. But even people like long-time Bitcoin developer Luke-Jr will tell you: the Bitcoin project might well fail.
Let us remember that the solid alternatives, like Woodcoin, have slight “enhancements.” In the case of Woodcoin, our primary contribution was a stabler supply schedule – rather than a shock to the system in the form of a “halvening.”
In Praise of Experimentation and Blockchain Banditry
Woodcoin remains an untested blockchain, in most ways, and I don’t mean this in a disrespectful way. The potential of the Satoshi codebase is pretty limitless with the right attitude. You may sometimes catch me showing respect to projects like Bitcoin Cash for their willingness to experiment – those who refuse forget that Bitcoin itself remains an experiment.
Which is to get to my point: if two Satoshi Nakamotos meet in the woods and neither comes out, did it ever happen? If it did, would the world shut the fuck about the man? Personally, like the judge in his case, I doubt Wright’s story – Satoshi Nakamoto was a humble man and a half-decent computer scientist. He would certainly not associate with the likes of Calvin Ayre, under any circumstances, because Calvin “2 Gigamegs” Ayre is simply not on his intellectual level.
